


The Best Gun

by ShannonPhillips



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 10:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18386798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannonPhillips/pseuds/ShannonPhillips
Summary: This story was my contribution to the Star Wars: Rebels tribute zine (swrebelszine.tumblr.com). It's my attempt to write a Sabine story in the "official" style--that is, a story that wouldn't be out of place in a Disney-branded collection. Set after the end of Rebels, Sabine intervenes on behalf of a young street artist on Garel, and passes on some hard-won wisdom.Thanks to gondalsqueen for her insanely helpful beta reading skillz!





	The Best Gun

Garel. Eleven months after the liberation of Lothal. The Empire has responded to the uprising in the neighboring system by cracking down hard here; curfew falls at sunset, and those who linger on the streets at night are at grave risk of disappearing into Imperial detention camps.

Nonetheless, beneath the light of the twin moons, a slim silhouette moves with acrobatic grace across the rooftops. Sabine Wren knows these streets very well by now, and the streets know her. She leaves her mark wherever she goes.

She tucks into a tumble, flipping herself mid-air as she jumps first to a store awning and then down to street level. The propaganda posters are ubiquitous, papering every building. She meant to add a little something to the ones here—and yet, she can’t help but laugh behind her helmet when she sees they’ve already been defaced. The stern red-and-black images originally exhorted citizens to REPORT DISSIDENTS and SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. Now there’s a bright orange starbird painted across two of them—it’s a little sloppy, but it’s definitely recognizable.

It was her symbol, once, and it still sings in her: that fierce yearning for freedom, the flames that birth new life, and hope. Lately she has begun seeing the starbird more often, and in places where she did not paint it herself. It’s been taken up by the people, an image that rallies and inspires them. As an artist she could ask for nothing better.

She pulls out her paint gun, intending to make a few swift additions that will make the starbird’s coloring more vivid and its outline crisper.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing!” The interruption echoes down the street: a patrol of stormtroopers has turned the corner. Sabine instinctively ducks into cover near the doorway, trading her paint gun for her twin blasters.

But the stormtroopers haven’t spotted her. There’s someone else on the streets tonight, apparently—the troops are bearing down a figure she can’t see. Another few moments, and they’ve crossed the intersection, disappearing from her view.

She shoves the blasters back into their holsters and moves fast, keeping low, crossing the open space of the street as unobtrusively as she can. She scales the opposite building as nimbly as she’d descended, and finds a vantage point where she can see who the bucketheads are harassing.

Looks like a street kid, from their ragged clothing and gaunt, hungry face. A Rodian boy, his antenna twitching in fear as he backs up in the face of the armored troops. He’s babbling, talking too fast for her to catch more than one word in three, although she does pick out “not me” and “didn’t do it.” The dripping paintbrush in the kid’s hand says otherwise, though—and he seems to realize it, as he belatedly tries to conceal it behind his back. Sabine notes that several more of the posters along this avenue have been marked with the starbird.

“Speak Basic, you filthy alien scum,” one of the stormtroopers says, and shoves the kid. The paintbrush clatters to the ground.

So does a spherical, metallic object, one red light blinking ominously near its center. It lands exactly where Sabine threw it—in the middle of the stormtroopers. There’s a second where they just stare at it, trying to process what just happened. And then: “GRENADE!” one shouts, but by then it’s too late. The smoke bomb activates, spewing clouds of red-colored gas into the immediate surroundings.

Sabine’s already in motion. In the confusion she leaps down to the street, grabs the kid, and activates her jetpack. Parkour’s a lot of fun and a good way to move around the city undetected, but there are situations that call for a little more power, and this is one of them. The boy shrieks as they lift off into the air: “Don’t worry,” she tells him. “I’m a friend”—and that’s enough to make him stop struggling.

They land on a rooftop far enough from the patrol that she’s not worried about being caught. She pulls off her helmet and smiles down at the kid. “Or maybe I should say, I’m a colleague. I’m Sabine Wren. Around here they like to call me ‘the Artist.’”

The boy’s huge, iridescent eyes stare back up at her. “You’re the Artist!” he breathes in an awestruck tone.

She tilts her head. “ _An_ artist,” she amends. “Not the only one. I was admiring your work, earlier. You have a good eye for placement, and strong lines for someone so young.”

But his antennae swivel mistrustfully. He looks her up and down, those black eyes lingering on her armor, and her armaments. “Painting is all _I_ can do,” he spits bitterly. He’s awfully young to be carrying so much bitterness, but Sabine can’t feel surprised. So many kids across the galaxy have had to grow up too soon—and she was one of them. “ _You_ have guns,” the boy says, eyeing her blasters. “You should have killed them.”

Sabine’s smile fades. She crouches down, helmet tucked beneath her elbow, so she can look the kid in the eyes. “We kill when we have to,” she says soberly. “Back there—I didn’t have to. So I didn’t.”

“If I had a gun, I would fight them,” the boy says. The inner membranes of his eyes nictate closed, briefly, before clearing again. His voice is steady, but there’s something about that quick gesture that makes Sabine think he’s on the verge of tears.

“I do fight them,” she says, in that same steady, serious tone. “I tell you what. Come along with me tonight. And when the sun comes up, I’ll give you my best gun.”

He just stares, mistrustfully. “No you won’t.”

“I will,” she says. “Do you know what this means?” She turns the helmet, so he can see.

“It means you’re Mandalorian,” the kid says sullenly.

“That’s right. If you know Mandalorians, then you know we keep our promises. And I tell you, on my honor, I will give you my best gun when the sun comes up.”

He looks at the blasters, then. WESTAR-35, heavily customized with her own modifications. She does like those blasters, and she’s put a ton of work into them over the years. She sees the glint of avarice in the kid’s big eyes, and it makes her smile. “C’mon,” she says, rising to her feet. The helmet settles back over her head, HUD lights flickering in the corners of her vision to mark hostiles and waypoints. Sometimes she feels a little blind when she takes the helmet off, but she takes that as a cue that she’s relying on it too much. Her voice crackles through its speakers. “You made a good start already, but there’s a lot of those posters left. Let’s go.”

Turns out the kid’s name is Yatzo. They talk, a little, while she’s showing him how to move without being seen, how to get over obstacles, and how to work with stencils and airbrushes to make his work cleaner and quicker. She tells him a little about what the starbird means to her. He tells her his favorite hiding spots, and shows her a back-alley shortcut she didn’t know about.

She doesn’t ask about his parents. He doesn’t volunteer the story.

She thinks, of course, about another street kid she knew—one who became a brother to her. _Don’t forget,_ _I’m counting on you_ , Ezra said. And inside her head she answers, as she’s answered a hundred times: _I won’t let you down_. Lothal is free now, and Garel will be: revolution is in the air, electric and sharp as an oncoming storm. The Imperials can put up all the posters they want. It just gives Sabine and her allies more canvas to work with.

By dawn, the starbird is everywhere. Its painted beak is closed, sharp. But it is screaming. Anyone who sees it can feel that. The inferno of the flames, the screech of defiance as it rises—stylized as it is, the passion behind it comes through.

Sabine and Yatzo huddle behind a big, parked garbage scow as Garel’s sun rises. As the people emerge. They have jobs to go to, schools to get their kids to, things they need to buy and things they need to sell—but the starbird is hard to ignore.

It provokes a lot of different reactions, when people see it. And see that it’s _everywhere_.

Some laugh, delighted. Some throw their fists in the air. Some just look at it hard, and turn slowly—and see the others, looking at it too. There’s something profound and fundamental that happens when people realize they aren’t alone. They begin to talk. They begin to make plans.

Behind the garbage scow, Sabine pulls out her WESTAR-35s and lays them on the pavement in front of the Rodian kid. Then she puts her paint gun beside them. “It’s dawn,” she says. “The best gun is the one that will protect you, and what you love. You choose.”

He only hesitates for a moment. Then he reaches out. His small, green fingers curl around the handle of the paint gun. She gives him a small, quiet nod, and puts her blasters back in their holsters. “I’ll do everything I can for Garel,” she tells him. “But I can’t be here all the time. It’s not my home. It’s yours. _You_ know what the people need to hear, or see. _You_ know how to give them hope.” She reaches out, folds her fingers over his. “You chose well.”

She’s gone by the time the sun has fully cleared the horizon. She’s gone to seek the fire, to find the front lines and fight there.

On Garel, a young warrior aims his weapon, and a new starbird is born.


End file.
